Clipboard

The Clipboard interface implements the Clipboard API, providing—if the user grants permission—both read and write access to the contents of the system clipboard. The Clipboard API can be used to implement cut, copy, and paste features within a web application.

The system clipboard is exposed through the global Navigator.clipboard property.

Calls to the methods of the Clipboard object will not succeed if the user hasn't granted the needed permissions using the Permissions API and the "clipboard-read" or "clipboard-write" permission as appropriate.

All of the Clipboard API methods operate asynchronously; they return a Promise which is resolved once the clipboard access has been completed. The promise is rejected if clipboard access is denied.

Methods

Clipboard is based on the EventTarget interface, and includes its methods.

read()

Requests arbitrary data (such as images) from the clipboard, returning a Promise. When the data has been retrieved, the promise is resolved with a DataTransfer object that provides the data.

readText()

Requests text from the system clipboard; returns a Promise which is resolved with a DOMString containing the clipboard's text once it's available.

write()

Writes arbitrary data to the system clipboard. This asynchronous operation signals that it's finished by resolving the returned Promise.

writeText()

Writes text to the system clipboard, returning a Promise which is resolved once the text is fully copied into the clipboard.

Clipboard availability

The asynchronous clipboard API is a relatively recent addition, and the process of implementing it in browsers is not yet complete. Due to both potential security concerns and technical complexities, the process of integrating this API is happening gradually in most browsers.

For example, Firefox does not yet support the "clipboard-read" and "clipboard-write" permissions, so access to the methods that access and change the contents of the clipboard are restricted in other ways.

For WebExtensions, you can request the clipboardRead and clipboardWrite permissions to be able to use clipboard.readText() and clipboard.writeText(). Content scripts applied on HTTP sites do not have access to the clipboard object. See extensions in Firefox 63.

In addition, read() and write() are disabled by default and require changing a preference to enable them. Check the compatibility tables for each method before using it.

Specifications

Browser compatibility

See also

• Document.execCommand()